Vaction choices with family

I would never expect anyone to go on a vacation with me or have hard feelings if they did not. If I wanted people to come along on their own dime and using their vacation time, I would certainly consider their prferences.

It seems remarkably entitled and self absorbed to expect people to sacrifice money and time to do what I want to do. The world does not revolve around me.

Well, if I were planning a vacation that I wanted others to attend with me, I would definitely keep their interests in mind.

And I wouldn't have hard feelings if they didn't want to come along to my planned trip.


But I also would say no to going to any trip that another planned for me, that wasn't to my liking.

Yep, if you expect the others to join you, you need to consider their budgets and interests. Perhaps the planning party could say, OK, family, we have several options and we'd like your input.

I agree about the destination wedding thing. My husband's brother got married a few years ago in a destination wedding. This is the only sibling either of us have, so of course it was expected that we would be there (and we actually like them, lol) - besides, DH was best man and the kids had roles in the wedding, too. It was scheduled during the week, and when school was in session. We had to take both kids out of school for pretty much the entire week, and of course, had to pay for 4 of us to have this brief vacation that we couldn't even extend to just have fun because we needed the kids in school. I don't begrudge them that, but it was a lot of money and hassle for a "vacation" we didn't get to get the vacation at. (Lots of the other people were single or couples, so they took a bunch of time off and benefited from it, so maybe for most people it was actually a great thing. Just not for us.)

My grandfather used to plan vacations for all our (small) extended family without really getting much input. However, he was largely paying for it or at least subsidizing it, which definitely helped. Even so, there were usually some people here or there who couldn't do it because of scheduling or something.

Destination weddings don't bother me, largely because for us, ALL family weddings are destination weddings. we have to pay for travel and take time off from work or school. Especially when the couple chooses a weekday wedding because it is so much cheaper for them. So their hometown wedding is an issue for out of towners like us. Sometimes we can attend, sometimes not.  People should not feel compelled to spend their time and money in ways that do not work for them.       

When you want people to attend, even hometown weddings, you are wise to check on potential conflicts or b eprepared that people may not be able to attend. Don't expect us to attend your Wednesday wedding during midterms of the school year or one scheduled during the biggest event of my work year. in fact, one niece planned her hometown wedding without getting any input on dates and one set of grandparents had Lready booked and paid for a trip of a lifetime vacation with two other couples that they had been planning and saving for over five years . In the end, the grandparents decided to take thAt vacation and missed the hometown wedding.

I don't know that I would take others' interests into account but there would be no hard feelings if people didn't want to put out the money to attend and this would be communicated clearly.

If I were planning a celebration trip for myself yet inviting others? I'd plan something that was heavily weighted to my interests but I would try to work it so that my  guests (regardless of who's paying) would enjoy themselves as well. 

For example: If I wanted something tropical but knew my guests hated the Caribbean I'd plan something in Mexico. If I loved laying on the beach with a good book but my guests were active I'd plan both beach days and a day with hiking and zip-lining. I'd also try to plan a day or two of down time where everyone could do as they pleased either together or alone.

So I guess I'd say maybe 60/70% geared to me and 40/30% geared towards my guests.



ETA: I missed the part about the trip causing hard feelings. I would never expect anyone to attend the trip. I wouldn't have hard feelings if they were unable to attend. To be honest, I might be a little disappointed, but hurt feelings/hard feelings? No way. That, to me, is ridiculous. People have lives which means they can't drop everything at the tip of a hat to party, it's crazy to take that personally. 

  If it was a trip that I wanted other people to come I would plan a with their interests in mind and discuss things like budget and vacation time. I would not feel obligated to go along with a trip planned by someone else for a personal celebration and I wouldn't expect anyone to feel obligated to come with me. My DH's sister had a destination wedding in Jamaica and we did not go for several reasons. I hope she has not had hard feelings over it, but I feel strongly that you shouldn't expect people to spend that much money and vacation time for your personal celebration. Due to other planned vacations and commitments we did not have the vacation time to do it all. 

I think if you are planning a destination event that you need to consider the interests of the other people you are inviting.

Several years ago a young woman in my extended family planned a destination wedding to Hawaii. Many relatives bought their airline tickets and paid for their lodging The ones who were going were excited about it and were glad to have a reason to book a trip to Hawaii. A couple months before the wedding, the bride called off the wedding. All of them, including the bride, went to Hawaii and had a great time vacationing together. On the day that was to have been the wedding day, they made a point to plan an excursion preoccupy their minds. They said the only thing awkward about it was they occasionally bumped into members of the groom's family who also decided to proceed with the vacation. I feel like if they had planned their wedding to a place that people wouldn't have wanted to go to, people might have been a bit grouchy about how it all turned out.